A Love Triangle in Three Dimensions
by RandomDarkness
Summary: They love her, she loves one and adores the other, while they hate each other. They both love him... and while he would die for either, he has made his choice and they care for each other too much to break faith. Two third wheels... they aren't in love.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One  
It was there, high and burning from the back of his nose into his brain. Vampire. Female and unknown... The Cullen's might enjoy the protection of a treaty and (more importantly for Jacob) of Bella's affections, random visitors had no such luck. The morning was cool and dim, the sun hidden as always behind the gentle veil of the clouds. When Jacob found her, she was already running, though it was obvious she wasn't running from him.  
"PISS OFF!" she screamed at last, skidding to a halt in a clearing so picturesque as to be mildly sickening. She was broad in the shoulders and solidly built with muscle clearly evident under the black t shirt and jeans she wore. Her face was angry and defiant as she glared off into the trees which, in no time at all, erupted with a moderately tall and rather impressively built male vampire.  
"That's not nice Nyssa..." his red eyes flashed at her in amusement and irritation.  
"We're past nice you masochist. I'm done, done with all this bull shit and done with you! I'm going to Cullen..."  
"We will NEVER be done, Nyssa, do you understand" he was angry yes, but desperate as well, obsessed in a way that Jacob understood, though he found seeing it reflected back on him from a vampire made him feel ill.  
"Andrew... go away. Go back to Aro, go to Egypt, go to hell for all I care. I'm not a God damn fix and I don't want to be a monster!"She was backing up slowly as Andrew approached her at human speed... She could fight of course, but she wasn't sure she'd win and in the end, she wasn't sure she could really hurt him even if she were the better fighter.  
"Where is your magical Carlisle then?" Andrew was snearing, "He hasn't come to save you, you're all alone... again..."  
Jacob would never be able to put his finer on exactly why he did it. Some part of him couldn't watch a man intimidate a woman with his size, he was to chivalrous for that. Something about the way she stood up to him, said she didn't want to be a monster... before he thought about it too much, Jacob burst forth from the brush and bounded to Nyssa's side where he crouched, snarling across the field at her stalker.  
Nyssa would have crapped herself, if she'd still been alive and able to do so. The smell alone brought up an instinctive fear, and she could see clearly that Andrew felt it too! But the wolf crouched beside her, snarling at Andrew... it had come to her rescue! She screwed up all her courage and reached out and put a hand on the great beasts head gently.  
"I'm not alone..." she said as calmly as she could... not bad for the situation she thought.  
"What the hell... Nyssa...?" The look he gave her was physically painful, a stabbing mix of confusion and betrayal...  
"Just go, Andrew. I'll be fine." she looked down at her unexpected savior, Jacob in turn glanced up at her, his eyes communicating that she probably shouldn't leave her hand there too long. She casually put both hands on her hips (real smooth), "You'll take me to Carlisle, wont you?"  
Jacob really wasn't sure how to answer that without a human mouth, so he gave a snort and sat next to her, seemingly waiting for her to be ready to go.  
"See."  
Andrew couldn't say anything at all. He was disgusted and afraid, not just for himself but for Nyssa too. Whatever else anyone could say, he did care about her, if only in a selfish way. Without another word he was gone, only the slight residue of his angry snarl remaining. Nyssa let out an explosive breath and backed off from the massive wolf, eyeing it warily.  
"It was sheer bravado, wolf-man..." she said breathlessly, "You're massive and really freakin' scarey."  
Jacob gave a satisfied snort, to let her know his wolfish dignity had been somewhat molified, though he showed no desire, and indeed was fighting to suppress the urge, to change back into a man.  
"Well... what happens now?" she asked him and he wondered in amusement how she thought he'd answer. "I'm not going to get anything from you, am I?" She paused for a moment and he simply continued to look at her. "Ok... well, if you were going to eat me, I assume you wouldn't have helped run him off... so if you can just shove your nose in the direction of the Cullen's, I'll get out of your hair."  
Jacob looked at her for a long minute and finally shifted his head, stabbing his nose off to the west. "Right... well. Thank you puppy, and ah... I guess I'll see you around. I'm Nyssa, and I owe you."  
There didn't seem any point saying anymore, so she hiked her backpack a bit higher on her shoulders, turned and disappeared into the forest. Jacob didn't move for a long time, he wondered at his own behaviour. It might be that Bella had rubbed off on him, or maybe just impressed upon him the idea that they weren't all that bad. Perhapse it was simply that he'd never in his life be able to watch one person bully another, he hated that, but one way or another something had shifted a bit inside him, he saw things a little differently and that deserved some thought.

Nyssa could feel them long before she could see them... her trepidation had caught Jasper's attention a good five minutes out from the house and they were all standing around the front door when she came through the trees. With an open look of apprehension, Nyssa stayed on the other side of the road from them, allowing them to decide the approach.  
Carlisle stepped forward and came halfway across the concrete. "Hello."  
"Hi... Um... my name is Nyssa, I uh... I was looking for you." It seemed so stupid now, to travel half way around the world to join a family she'd never even seen, what was she thinking?  
"What's going on?" Bella whispered to Edward, though everyone present could hear her, Nyssa's breath caught in her throat and Edward pushed Bella behind him.  
"It's true..." she looked at all of them in turn, at Bella and then back to Carlisle as though he were some kind of messiah, "None of them... none of you feed from people..." she seemed to be filled with wonder at the idea.  
"That's true, I'm Carlisle. How can we help you Nyssa?"  
"I..." now that it had come to it, it seemed like a stupid thing to have done. How do you walk into someone's family and ask to take up residence? She wanted to throw herself at his feet and beg his mercy, beg him to teach her how to be better, show her how he'd not only maintained this life himself but impressed it upon an entire coven!  
Suddenly she felt unnaturally calm, as though everything were exactly the way it should be and a young man was in front of her with haunted eyes and floppy hair and she somehow understood that he was doing this to her. "You should come inside..." he said softly in a voice so thickly southern that Nyssa thought it smacked of a bad romance. Surely hokey music should swell at any moment.  
"I didn't know where else to go..." she confessed.  
Carlisle looked at his most reticent and inwardly focused son as he took the initiative and stood back, gesturing them to enter. "Please."  
"You knew where to come," Jasper said softly, leading the girl he was sure was always meant to be his baby sister into the house. Alice slipped in behind them wearing her usual gentle smile. It had been distorted, this particular day, she wasn't sure why, but she'd had a feeling someone was coming. "Do you need me to ask Bella to leave?" he asked her.  
"No... I'm alright." Nyssa looked at Bella and smiled shyly, "I ate in the forest... there's good squirrel here."  
Bella laughed behind her hand and Edward tried to shush her for fear of causing offense, but Nyssa was smiling broadly at having made the human laugh.  
"I'm Bella." she held out her hand unselfconsciously.  
Nyssa looked at it wide eyed for a moment, then proudly took the offered hand and shook it with an appropriate degree of firmness. "Nyssa... I..." she shook her head, confused and amused and releaved and bewildered "thank you."  
"I got your room ready this morning," Alice said, patting her gently on the shoulder, "but Jasper said I probably went overboard... you'll probably want to move some stuff out so you can, you know, move."  
"It's true then," Nyssa said, still wide eyed but pleasantly numbed under Jasper's constant unspoken reassurance. "You really are the most powerful coven in the world..."  
"I wouldn't go that far," Carlisle coughed a little, he'd never liked to have his family spoken about in those terms, like they were his army or something. "The children are quite talented, that's all."  
"But the wolves protect you, one of them ran off one of Aro's lacky-boy's who was chasing me, trying to talk me out of comming here."  
"One of them helped you?" Emmet asked with a raised eyebrow. "You're sure?"  
"Well... yeah. I mean he never changed back into a man, but he backed me up and snarled a bit until Andrew went away, then he just sat there looking at me for a while... then I asked him the way and he sort of shoved his nose in this direction."  
The other vampires all looked at each other with a mixture of concern and surprise. But Bella wasn't surprised... "Sortof a light brown... maybe caramel colour?"  
"Yeah," Nyssa smiled, "he was a nice puppy."  
Bella laughed, covering her mouth with her hand, "I wouldn't call him that if I were you."  
Edward was frowning, but then how could he not? Bella always smiled when she spoke of Jacob, always got that slightly distant look which suggested endless seeming childhood summers pulling each others hair and making their parents nuts. She had history with him, childhood history, a joined maturing that he'd never share with her.

Nyssa stood on the back porch watching Jasper running through a series of movements. She didn't recognize it as any particular martial art, but it was obvious that in his mind he was doing violence on someone. Lots of sharp twisting motions and short, vicious punches.  
"I can show you, if you want." His voice surprised her.  
"What is it? I don't recognize it at all..." She made her way down the stairs, keeping her eyes focused on his hands as they moved.  
"I don't think we ever named it," he stopped at looked up at her seriously, "it's designed for fighting vampires..."  
The she understood. All those sharp twists and punches, he was practicing dismembering other vampires! From under, over and around the edges of his control she felt his defiance, daring her to be disgusted, to be angry, unapologetic but hopeful of understanding.  
"You invented it?" She asked, eyes wide - though she allowed herself to feel exactly as she felt. Awed, afraid perhaps a little but not of him exactly...  
"I helped. Here," he stepped back and motioned her to stand in front of him. His arms moved around her and he took a hold of her wrists to pull her arms gently into the correct starting positions. "Imagine his arms, grappling with you. They always try to grapple... it'll be even more likely with you because you're small." She nodded but said nothing, she'd gone through to black belt in three martial arts, she knew when to keep her mouth shut. "Think about the joints, the bone, you want to use the bone to help you... it'll fracture, help you tear through the skin..."  
That was how it started, non-stop, for three days... hammering, nailing, until everyone wanted to kill them, Jasper and Nyssa built an extensive training area. They mounted powerful lights on the porch to illuminate it and trained all night most nights while Alice and Edward sat on the porch watching in a mix of amusement and concern. Eventually, concern gave way to pity, and they both went inside.  
Since she had arrived, the Cullen's had learned three things about Nyssa; one, she was a mad keen martial artist, two, she was a constant contradiction of over-share and secretiveness about herself and three, Nyssa truly believed that the world should be perfect. That it COULD be perfect if everyone would just stop trying to hard to be dicks. She and Jasper sent hours at a time in the back yard, to the others it looked like they were beating the hell out of each other. That was part of it maybe, but not all as proved by Emmet's inability to keep up with them for more than a couple of days. It wasn't that they went harder on him, in fact much to his mortification it seemed they treated quite gently with him before going at each other hell for leather.  
"What're they thinking about?" Bella whispered to Edward as they stood on the balcony watching as Jasper had Nyssa pinned and was trying to find a choke hold, only to have her arch her back impossibly and wriggle free, resetting their battle.  
"You know you shouldn't ask things like that..." he said seriously, "but I don't think they'd mind if you know..." he lent against the railing, his eyes distant, "sometimes they think it's fun, they're playing with each other, they've found something they can share and it makes them happy... but sometimes it's very serious. They think about us, about the family... about each other, and about being ready. Being able to protect us if they have too..."  
"From Aro, you mean?" she asked softly.  
"Among other things... they take it very seriously." He turned to look at her and pulled her into his arms, "I think there's something in them that's stronger than anything the rest of us can feel." He said into her hair, "There's a resolve there that even Carlisle doesn't understand."  
"What do you mean?" She looked up at him, concerned.  
Edward shrugged slightly and looked at his siblings fighting over her head. "Nyssa and Jasper would die for us, for the idea of our family. They think it's more important than anything, more important than themselves..."  
"Don't you feel that way?" Bella asked, somewhat surprised.  
"Not like they do," he admitted, "I'll fight, when the time comes, and I know I might die... but I'm afraid of it. They aren't, for them, that's just how it is."  
"That's beautiful and sad at the same time," Bella sighed, "that they can love so much, but they value themselves so little."  
"I think that's what Carlisle thinks too..."

The others still had lives, lives that included double dates and couply things and most notably didn't include Nyssa. It wasn't that they deliberatly left her behind, it was just that sometimes, luck and fate orchestrated it that everyone had paired off at the same time. That was when she'd run... off into the forrest, blindly following her senses towards nothing in particular.  
The first time she'd come upon him she'd been a little surprised - she didn't think they'd come into the 'Cullen area'. There he was though, sitting on his haunches, his tongue lolling out and his caramel eyes blinking at her... dare she think 'wolfishly'?  
"Hello puppy," she said carefully, stopping a decent distance from him and sitting on the ground. "Were you waiting for me? You look like you were waiting for me."  
Jacob watched her for a moment, then trotted across the distance between them determined to move right past her and be done with the whole silly business. Completely misreading his intention, Nyssa smiled brightly and reached out with both hands to feel the wild coarseness of his fur. The noise the wolf made was a bizarre mix of a growl and a great rumbling purr.  
"Is that good?" she asked, moving her hands up to scratch around his ears as one might with a household pet.  
Jacob's dignity was shattered and yet he tilted his head and let her scratch.  
"Wow... I feel like I have this whole St Francis thing happening," she said half joking through her very real awe. The wolf growled a little and snapped his jaws, though no where near her. "You know what I think... I think you're a big sook, just like my nanna's big pitt bull. Oh you're all teeth and claws but I'll tell you something," she leaned in and whispered into his ear "Your tail is wagging!"  
With a pained whine, Jacob flopped down onto his stomach, all self respect gone. He turned his head, resting it on one massive paw and glared at her.  
"Oh man up... Bella said hi."  
The wolf stood quickly and shoved her over with his huge shoulder before bounding off into the forest leaving Nyssa to wonder what she said.  
She didn't see him again for three days. She spoke to him calmly, normally, and paused to give him time to answer, though of course didn't.  
"Why wont you talk to me?" She asked him, being obvious and a little stiff about not getting to close to him, not touching him at all. "I know you can, I know you have a name and a face - Bella speaks very highly of you. You're always here when I run, but you wont talk to me." Inevitably she gave up and simply invited him to run with her, which he did without any wolfish comment.  
They didn't go anywhere in particular, she simply ran, bounded off tree trunks and over fallen rocks laughing at her own exuberance. The wolf couldn't laugh of course, but Nyssa was sure he was having a good time too - all fast creatures love to run.

On Saturday afternoon she decided again to see if puppy was around, Bella had told her his name was Jacob, but it was hard to think of him as a man with a name and a voice when he wouldn't show her either and the others had seemed... on edge... about the whole business. She would think of him as puppy until he introduced himself properly.  
Three kilometers from the Cullen house, puppy trotted into view through the tree's and, as had become her custom, she bowed to him formally. "Hello puppy!" she gushed in an over the top baby-talk voice.  
Jacob gave her a withering look, which Nyssa laughed at, "Hey, you want grown-up conversation, take your mask off." She stood straight and looked around, he hair flicking about her ears, "Run?" she asked.  
Jacob wasn't really sure why he wouldn't show her his face. Maybe that would make everything too real? He liked her exuberance, her clarity... he liked that she seemed to be completely unaware of the fact that it's weird to talk to a massive dog in the forest every other day. But he wasn't just a big dog in the forest, if he had to talk to her, maybe everything would be different. Or maybe he was just a big stupid wuss, he grumbled to himself, which translated into a low vaguely irritated growl.  
Nyssa looked at him sharply, "what is it puppy?" she crouched down and, taking her life into her hands, put one hand on his haunch. Jacob whined softly and headbutted her shoulder before trotting off a few meters then turning back to look at her. "Alright, you can pick where we go."  
So they ran. In Jacob's mind Nyssa cheated outrageously, swinging about and launching herself from tree's over rough ground to make up speed. All for naught though - no vampire could outrun a werewolf. Nyssa burst through the tree's onto an empty stretch of beach and crashed into a young indian man who was stood directly in her path, grinning.  
"Waa!" She cried, trying to swerve but it was too late, they went end over end and then rolled across the sand while Nyssa's mind filled with terrifying possibilities of exactly how broken a human could get being run over by a vampire... but when they came to rest he was on top of her laughing.  
"Sunday driver," Jacob chuckled.  
Nyssa's eyes widened, "Puppy...?" she'd landed with her hands on his shoulder's and now, suddenly realized that he felt like he was on fire! "You're... wow, you're hot." Jacob blinked at her and raised an eyebrow, "I mean... uh," Nyssa looked everywhere but at his face, "I mean physically... wait... I mean temperature wise you're practically on fire."  
"Werewolf metabolism. Warm in winter but summer's a bitch." He sprang up into a crouch beside her and gazed at her seriously.  
Though she returned his serious look, Nyssa didn't move. "Why did you help me? The others ah... don't really trust you all that much..."  
"I don't exactly trust them either..."  
"Then why did you help me?" She turned her head to look at him closely, a handsome face to be sure, but so young...  
"I guess it was a chivalry thing,"  
"Chivalry is just chauvinism in 'wank'", she said, sitting up, "why are you OK with me and not with them?"  
Jacob frowned and stood, turning away from her and looking out at the sea. "I guess you don't smell like a threat." He sat on a large rock without looking back at her.  
She was next to him supernaturally fast, which didn't seem strange at all. She stared out at the sea and didn't speak for a long time. "Edward frowns like a terminal prognosis whenever I come home smelling like you... I think Rosie might have been happy to throw me out for it. Carlisle wouldn't hear of it though," she laughed softly "he's all about inter-species communication. Makes us sound like a science project." She reached out and put her hand on his, "What I mean is, it doesn't take a mind reader to work it all out."  
Jacob didnt look at her, and he couldn't help feeling betreyed at her knowledge of him. "Great."  
Nyssa squeased his hand gently and lent around to look at his face when he kept staring straight ahead, "loving someone who doesn't love you sucks." She said evenly, "even if you're dead."  
He did look at her then with a raised eyebrow, "please, God, not Edward,"  
Nyssa laughed and shook her head, "ah, no... no that's too much brood even for a dead chick." she looked around like she had a great secret, "the worst part, of course, is that his gift is mood reading... so he knows. Not just intellectually, he's not just aware of the information, he actually KNOWS how I feel."  
"I have this feeling that if I could just make Bella feel it we'd be together..." he looked at her and felt the amiable companionship of their shared teen-style angst. "This is pretty pathetic, you know."  
"Yeah... I'm having a D and M with a puppy," Jacob snorted and shoved her a bit with his shoulder, she laughed and lent her head down to his shoulder and they stared out at the water together. "Sorry, couldn't resist."  
"You're the only one,"  
"That was kinda whiny," she tilted her head to grin up at him and somehow, even though he felt he should probably be offended, he knew she was right.  
"Why did you come here?" He asked suddenly, looking down at her face.  
"I was on my way to being 'collected'... Aro, he's the head of the largest coven in Europe, he collects talents. Weapons really, anyone he can use to stay in control." She looked away from him then, dreading the question she knew he'd have to ask eventually... she kept talking to try to head him off. "Everyone knows about Carlisle though, about what he's accomplishing here. Eventually, I think, Aro will try to do something about it so this is me, chosing a side."  
"Nyssa... what is it you do, exactly?" he knew she didn't want to say, but he could also see that part of her did. If they could sit here, like this, then surely whatever it was she was physically capable of didn't matter, even if she could melt people with her eyes, she DIDN'T so what difference did it make?  
Nyssa looked up at him, her eyes pleading but he stared back and in the end she wouldn't lie. "Please... don't make me." She looked down at her hands, twined her fingers together then pulled them apart, anything to keep from looking at him. "Just um... not yet, OK?"  
"Jesus, Nyssa, what do you do? Melt people's skin off their bones?" He was at least half joking.  
"No, nothing like that! I'm not sure anyone can do anything like that really... it's all in the mind." She stayed where she was, leaning against his shoulder though she did turn her face slightly to press her cheek into the insane warmth on his skin. "It's just trouble, stupid trouble that I don't need. I just want a friend..."  
"We're friends..."  
"I know," she turned her head again and looked up at the side of his face. "I just can't work out why."  
Jacob frowned, he'd been wrestling with the same problem himself, and though part of him wanted to take the high position and demand to know why it mattered, he knew it probably did. "I'm not thinking about that right now," he said at last, putting an arm around her shoulders and squeezing. "My best friend is... basically gone, and..." he squeezed her harder, comforted perversely by the fact that it wouldn't hurt her. "My father used to say that if you came upon someone in the woods,and there was no chance of getting caught, if you wouldn't kill them, then you don't really hate them..." his voice was very far away, it scared her a little but she squashed her fear down. "I really hate that guy Nyssa, I hate him!"  
"Even if he makes her happy?"  
"Even more BECAUSE he makes her happy..." he sighed "that's sick isn't it? I hate the guy who makes my best friend happy..."  
"A little, but I think it's very human."  
"Don't you?" he looked down at her and noticed that her eyes had that light caramel color they all seemed to share when they were emotional. "Hate her I mean, the one he's with."  
Nyssa shook her head slowly, "I don't think I can. Not that I can't hate anyone, I just... him loving her so much comes from him being who he is, if he didn't love her, then he wouldn't be him. He'd be someone who looks like him, and I might not love him anymore. In a way he has to love her..."  
"Nyssa... Are you some kind of saint or something?" He laughed, but there was a sadness in it too. A part of him wished that he could just accept everything like that but even as he had that thought he realised that hot on it's heels was the idea that maybe if he WERE that good, then she'd love him instead which sortof undermines the whole business.  
She laughed too and snuggled in closer, "No... saints go to heaven when they die, they don't hang around just to be angsty. It's just not their fault I'm like this - they love me, they accepted me like family and they didn't have to."  
"You're a better person than me,"  
"I'm not sure that's true, but I'll take the compliment." She sighed and closed her eyes, "I miss getting sleepy, I think now would be a nice time to get sleepy."  
"Do you get bored? Trying to fill in all that time."  
"I am pretty much constantly bored with a few hours of excitement thrown in every now and then. I have the attention span of a goldfish. Dude, seriously are you sure you're not sick?"  
Jacob laughed. "Even if I am it's not like you can catch it."  
"I know, I'm just having a hard time wrapping my mind around something living very long with a fever like this. It's nice though,"  
"Oh?"  
"Ambient temperature is fine, but I haven't really been warm for half a century." She smiled at his look of surprise.  
"I guess I hadn't noticed. Everyone feels kinda cool to me."  
"In that case you can put that other arm around me," she laughed happily when he did.  
"I'm sitting on a beach, holding a beautiful girl in my arms... and she's dead." He let out a short, sharp laugh, "this is my social life."  
"Hey, I'm getting my snuggles on with a dog. Begger's can't be choosers,"  
"You know this is a really bad idea, right?" he let his chin drop to her shoulder anyway.  
"Probably not as bad as it seems... sure you're a wolf and I'm dead, aaaand we're both hot for other people..." She laughed as he smiled at her obviousness, "Buuut at least we don't have to lie."  
"True. Course, we're both going to go home stinking like the enemy. Home to houses full of people with heightened senses of smell."  
Nyssa didn't look up, but she did have a shy and impish look on her face that he could just catch the edge of. "What exactly is it you think they'll be smelling?"  
One large, impossibly warm hand snuck up from her waist to cup her cheek and gently force her to look up at him. God his face was impossible, just not natural. He was hard, straight lines made gentle to the eye by soft, open expression and the half second of biting his bottom lip before he closed the space between them and kissed her was completely unfair!  
She didn't love him, but she loved the idea of him - a sad, lonely kindred for her own pain. She whimpered softly against his lips and her fingers closed around his arms, neither pulling him in nor pushing him away. Everything at the edges of her awareness became pleasantly fuzzy and distant, her life and all its complications were situations of limited importance in a land far, far away. She didn't need to breathe, but she was momentarily grateful when he eventually pulled back for a breath, for the ability to get her bearings again.  
"Puppy..." it was her turn to bite her lip and look unsure as his indecipherable brown eyes bored into her, like he was waiting for her to run. He was still holding her face gently and the heat made her mind scatter, his thumb rubbed a gentle circle high on her cheek and he lent forward to press his forehead to hers so their noses touched lightly. "What are we doing?"  
"Not thinking," he murmured against her lips and the rumble made her tremble. His arms had tightened around her "just... just really not thinking." He let his fingers run through her hair, which was short and scruffy, completely different from Bella's longer, gently wavy locks. He liked that it was different, even more he liked that he liked it!  
Nyssa let her head fall back a little, cradled in his hands she felt small and overcome by the force of his presence. "What about Bella?" She gasped as he kissed his way to her ear and was sick with herself the moment she said it...  
"What about your empathic guy...?"  
She bit her lip and her huge gold eyes stared at him, "I don't want to feel like this anymore."  
"So don't..." he kept his arms around her, his eyes intense and focused, he was sick of being a little bitch too. "C'mere."  
God help her, she obeyed, leaning in and giving in at the same time. Screw it, screw all of it. Jacob was warm and gentle and THERE! Nyssa was soft and cutely affectionate and she didn't run. It might have lasted for hours, or been over in moments, neither was particularly sure. What they did know was that it was easy, it was uncomplicated and like sex between teenagers who's bodies run riot with hormones, it was fun! He broke her jacket in his exuberance and she lost her balance at an inopportune moment and wound up falling across him while trying to get her shirt off. The seriousness that they both expected never showed itself. With Jacob buried deep inside her she urged him to sit up and held him against her naked chest where he tickled her nipple with his tongue making her giggle which made him laugh.  
When it was over and he couldn't breathe while she couldn't think, they looked at each other across the tiny space they had allowed between them and simultaneously began to laugh. Jacob reached out and brushed some sand from her smooth white shoulder with a boyish smile, "we messed up the beach..." he grinned as she looked around and realized it was true! The sand had been disturbed for a good two hundred meters where they had rolled, fallen, loved and rolled some more.  
"Wow..." she sat up and looked down at him, his skin seemed very brown against the scrubby off colour sand. A soft smile spread across her face and she reached out to touch his cheek, he smiled back and turned his face into her cold palm.  
"Is wow good?" he asked lightly.  
Nyssa laughed and flopped back down onto his chest, "Wow is brilliant." Without thinking she nuzzled her face into the overheated skin of his neck only to give a small cry when he scooted out from under her and growled. "Puppy...?" She looked at him confused.  
"Stay away from my neck!" He growled low in his throat, somehow looking all the more frightening for the fact that he was naked.  
"What...?" her eyes widened and she angrily hurried to her clothes, pulling her jeans on glaring at him the whole time. "You son of a bitch." She huffed, hauling her shirt over her shoulders and doing up the buttons haphazardly, just enough to cover herself before grabbing her ruined jacket, "What kind of man has sex with a woman, thinking the whole time that she's a monster? Jesus..." she pushed her arms into her jacket and for a moment when she looked at him her face betrayed her sadness, but then hardened, "you really are just a dog..." then she was gone.  
Jacob, still reeling from sex and the adrenalin burst looked down at himself. Apart from a couple of scratches that he could feel on his back, and his body tingled with the memory of her putting them there, he was in perfect health... she hadn't tried to hurt him. "Shit," he grunted to himself, grabbing his pants and putting them on. It had been natural, hadn't it? All living things get that rush, that fear when a predator is that close, he hadn't done anything wrong. But Nyssa hadn't either... why didn't he explain? Why hadn't he tried to apologise? He'd just let her yell at him, think those things about him, and leave...

Nyssa's progress through the house and into the back yard was less than smooth. Edward heard her cursing in his mind, using words from a number of different languages to be as insulting as she could manage. Jasper, upstairs in the room he shared with Alice, felt the tempest of anger and hurt and confusion swirl by underneath him, nearly knocking him off his seat. "Shit," he grunted, blinking owlishly and gritting his teeth against it.  
"Jasper?" Alice hurried to his side and put her arms around him, "baby, are you OK? What is it?"  
"Nyssa, she's..." he shook his head a little and then lent to the side to rest against his wife and take comfort from her calm. She was always so calm... "Something's happened."  
In the back yard, Nyssa was beating the hell out of an abstract-looking titanium statue designed to represent a human/vampire body. God knows where Jasper had gotten the damn thing, everyone else thought it was creepy, but it stood up to the punishment fairly well.  
"I'm not going down there," Emmet was in the middle of telling Bella and Edward, both of whom watched with worried frowns.  
"What happened?" Jasper asked them, wondering if his dummy could stand up to much more.  
"She's very angry..." Edward said redundantly, "she's swearing in at least three languages and a few more I don't know. I wouldn't go down there if I were you."  
Jasper watched his newest sister for a minute more and then sighed, "Wuss... stay here." He trotted down the steps and moved up behind her and, without pause, threw a punch directly at the back of her head which she spun and blocked reflexively.  
"Jesus!" Bella hissed and made to go down to stop them but Edward stopped her with an arm around her waist.  
"Don't... Jasper knows what he's doing."  
"They're going to hurt each other! Em! Stop them!"  
"Oh no... not me baby-girl. Jasper's pretty hardcore, he'll be fine." Emmet lent against the railing and his face showed his words to be a lie.  
Down on the ground, Jasper and Nyssa circled each other, locking into holds occasionally and then wriggling free, they even landed some decent blows each, though to anyone who knew what they were looking for it was clear that Nyssa was sloppy and Jasper was pulling his punches. Finally, with a hopeless sounding cry, Nyssa gave up on form and flung herself at his chest, hitting it ineffectually. Jasper wrapped his arms around her shoulders and sank both of them down onto their knees.  
"Nyssa...?"  
"God, fucking damnit!" She whimpered against him, headbutting his chest and squeasing her eyes shut. "I'm so fucking stupid Jaz..."  
He could feel her embarrassment, burning its way through her like a fever, underneath it she was hurt and angry. "Nys, what's going on? You're scaring everyone..."  
She glanced up over his shoulder at the small crowd gathered on the porch, "Oh christ," she groaned and hid her face in his chest again, "great... brilliant... just, fuck."  
"Talk to me Nys, forget them."  
"I did something... really stupid." She couldn't look at him.  
"Everyone has the right to be stupid every now and then, just don't abuse the privilege." His smile was as light as he could make it, but he could feel that it wasn't going to work. She was disgusted with herself, and afraid... afraid of what he'd say. "Hey... you know me, I'm not even gonna ask, OK? Just stop feeling like that."  
She bit her bottom lip and shuddered in a deep breath. "I'm sorry I hit you,"  
"I hit you first. You looked like you could use it. You wanna go hunt? We could try and find a bear." Jasper asked with a raised eyebrow.  
"Bear? I could go some bear! Can we go get a bear Nyssie?" Emmet gushed, walking past them on his hands with his feet in the air and then flipping up the right way, "Pleeeeeeeeease?"  
Nyssa laughed, pushing herself up and out of Jasper's arms to hug Emmet tightly, "Yeah, let's got hunt a bear."  
"ROSIE! Come down here girl, we're goin' hunting! BEAR!" Emmet screamed.  
"Oh dear..." Edward shook his head but he was smiling just the same.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"You should go with them, Edward." Bella said with a smile.  
"It's alright I can stay here with you," he frowned as she reached into her pocket for her vibrating phone.  
_Bella, I've done a stupid guy-thing, need help! Can you meet me at the Push? Jake  
_Bella held up her phone and shook it with a rye smile, "I have girl problems to fix, you go, don't let Emmet ruin his shoes and I'll see you tonight!" She kissed him lightly on the lips then turned and hurried away before he could argue.  
"You coming Eddie?" Nyssa called from the garden edge.  
Edward shuddered, he hated being called that but for some reason didn't have the heart to tell her. "Yeah, yeah I'm coming. Emmet, change your shoes!"

Bella smiled as she drove, she hadn't been able to see Jacob for weeks really, at least nothing more satisfying that a hug while they passed each other on the street. She knew that Jacob and Edward made each other uncomfortable and desperately unhappy, though for the life of her there was no workable solution she could find. She loved Edward, loved him to distraction and the loss of all usable mental faculty, but she couldn't give up Jacob... Her doe-eyed friend with his sorrowful sighs and the concrete reassurance she could get from no one else that, should everything come crashing apart tomorrow, someone would always be there for her.  
When she pulled into the car park he was sitting on the wooden fence in his ratty old denim shorts frowning seriously, his face didn't even pick up when he saw her as it usually would.  
"Jake? What's wrong? You look like someone died. Wait, no one died did they?"  
"What? No, no nothing like that." He stood, hugged her, then sat again leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "I think... I mean I'm pretty sure that somewhere out there, right now, is a girl telling everyone she knows how shit I am..."  
"Jesus, what did you do exactly?"  
"Can we get off the beach? Just... in the car or something?" He looked embarrassed and grumpy so she opened up the passenger door and climbed in, letting him go round to the driver's side... Jacob liked to drive.  
"Just talk to me Jake. You can't have done anything that bad, I know you."  
"Ahhhh... I did something really stupid," he dropped his head onto the steering wheel with a thud.  
"Something or someone?" Bella said flippantly, stopping cold when he lifted his face and stared hard at her. "Oh my GOD! Jake! Was it good? Oh, was it bad? Is that it? It was bad?" She babbled.  
Jake blushed and leaned back in his seat, "Wow..."  
"Wow? That's all I get is wow? JAKE!" She punched him in the arm and he feigned pain. "Come ON, I have to live vicariously here!"  
"Really?" he looked down at his lap, then back over at her, "I just thought... I mean you and Edward,"  
"Long, sexually frustrated story which I WILL share with you if you spill! Now!"  
"OK,OK, God... Never get between a girl and her gossip." He took a deep breath and lent forward again, pressing his forehead against the steering wheel. "I hardly know her really. I mean I've seen her a few times and we've hung out a little I guess."  
"You're being really vague here Jake, make with the name." A terrible suspicion was building in her throat, making it tight and hot and dry.  
"Nyssa, alright it was... ah shit this is bad."  
"I've never heard you swear before," she said softly, "You're right though. I was at the house when she came home and... she's pretty upset. I don't think she'll tell anyone though, Jasper tried to get it out of her and if she wont tell him she wont tell anyone. Jake, what happened?"  
"You know... the one thing leading to another thing."  
"I don't mean that you big lump! What upset her?"  
"Oh... that..." he fought to look at her, to meet her eyes defiantly, but the conviction he held less than an hour before, that he hadn't actually done anything wrong had since slipped away to be replaced by a guilt that was reaching crippling levels. "We destroyed the beach... seriously the place looked like a twister had gone through it. I hadn't... you know," he glanced at her and for just a minute he was seventeen and just a boy who'd never really known a girl, then he looked away and it was gone. "She was sitting up next to me and, I remember brushing sand of her shoulder, we were laughing. She leaned down and then... her face was in my neck and I panicked."  
"What do you mean, 'you panicked'? What was there to panic about?" She was frowning now and Jacob was afraid he wouldn't be able to make her understand.  
"Bella! I'm a werewolf damn it and a vampire had her teeth ON MY NECK! I just... I panicked and pushed her off and stood up. Then she was angry, really angry she started talking and I just couldn't get my damn mouth to work! I wanted to explain, I wanted to say I hadn't meant it but nothing would work! I just stood there like a big naked idiot and then she called me a dog and she left."  
Bella just looked at him, working it through in me mind as best she could. If she was ever honest enough with herself to really examine it, she'd have to admit she was intrigued and interested in the mental image of a naked Jacob. Pulling her mind away from that though, she had to help him with his problem before the Cullen's worked out what had happened!  
"OK, so, some sort of wolfish instinct gave you a freak out because she was too close to your neck?" She looked at him and he nodded. "Right. You wanted to explain, but you got post-sex-mouth and couldn't seem to make it happen, then she ran off upset and you stood there tackle out wondering how all that had happened. That about it?"  
"You make it sound like a kids book, Bella."  
"Look, on the 'stupid man' scale of one to ten, what you've got here is really only about a three, assuming you actually WANT to fix it."  
"What do you mean assuming I want to?" He frowned at her across the cab of the truck.  
"Well... she's a vampire, you're a werewolf, your families hate each other. This is an out, if you want it. If you do nothing, she'll get over it and everything can just sort of go on..."  
"And just let her hate me, you mean?" He didn't like the sound of that at all. "I don't want her to hate me Bella,"  
"Do you want her to like you?" She asked, her eyes averted, unsure if she really wanted to know the answer to that.  
"I..." He bit his lip looking around aimlessly for a moment, "I don't know, but I don't want this. I want us to work it out between us not... not just do something stupid and screw everything up."  
"You think you two could be like..."  
"I don't know!" he stopped and looked at her, then more calmly "I don't know, Bella. But right now, I feel like crap."  
"OK..." she wriggled across and hugged him tightly, "then we'll fix it."  
"How?" He let his cheek rest against her head and for the first time he felt a niggle of guilt in the action.  
"The same way guys have been fixing their mistakes since the dawn of time, dummy. You bring her flowers and throw yourself on her mercy..." She tilted her head back and looked up at him, Jacob was surprised to find that the ever present urge to kiss her was somewhat less. "Nyssa's a nice girl,"  
"Yeah, I think so too."

Three hours later, armed with a posy of pale pink roses wrapped in darker pink paper and sitting beside Bella on the Cullen's front steps, Jacob fidgeted madly. Bella put her hand firmly on his arm "you'll ruin the flowers, Jake. Just stop."  
"A family of vampires is about to eat me, Bella." He hissed.  
"They wont, stop being a wuss."  
"Jacob." Edward was at the foot of the stairs, damn he was fast.  
"Edward." Jacob said carefully.  
Edward eyed off the flowers, then Bella, then Jacob and then his mind put it all together. "Please, Edward. Be nice, OK?" Bella asked softly.  
To Jacob's surprise, Edward gave a short nod, "I'll take the others inside," and then he was gone.  
"Here goes," Jacob mumbled, standing up.  
Nyssa was unnaturally fast too, and she was standing half way up the drive before Jacob really had the chance to marshal this arguments or even take that breath he had planned, the one that was meant to carry him through the entire business seeing as the ability to breathe was likely to abandon him. He stood awkwardly, holding the flowers loosely in one hand as though not really sure what to do with them.  
"You look ridiculous," she said coolly.  
Jacob looked down at himself. He was wearing beat-up old trainers without socks, ratty denim shorts and an old t-shirt that might have been on the verge of falling apart. "I feel ridiculous."  
"What are you doing here Jacob?" She asked with a sigh.  
He frowned deeply, he didn't like having her call him that for some reason. It was unnatural, distant and cold. He looked at the flowers in his hand and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I'm sorry Nys..." Nyssa shook her head and refused to look at him in the eye. "You wont even look at me?"  
"You can't just turn up with, what are they? Roses? And expect everything to be alright, I don't even know why you bothered coming. What's the point?"  
"What's the... Nys, the point is I hurt you and I'm sorry! I have NO idea what I'm doing, I just couldn't leave it like that and," he looked at the flowers he was holding, "this seems like a stupid idea. I can't work out what a vampire would do with a vase of flowers anyway? I can't really work out what anyone would do with a vase of flowers... Bella said my mistake was only like a three out of ten on the stupid boy-o-meter and I should just come throw myself on your mercy... I could do with some of that now."  
He let the flowers lower until her was holding them by the stems and the blooms were pointing to the ground. Nyssa scooted forward and pulled them up, her hands brushing his in the process. "You'll damage them," she mumbled, looking down into the cluster of pink. "I'm not really a pink person."  
"I know, but they didn't have any dark purple ones," he said softly and Nyssa looked up at him shocked.  
"How did you...?"  
"Nyssa, pretty much everything I've ever seen you wear was purple." She smiled slightly and made to step back but he put one hand on her arm gently. "Please. I want to fix this."  
"Why?" she sighed and let her hands fall from the flowers. "I mean, I know you're a nice guy. Bella sings your praises from the rooftops and I can tell you hate that you've done something that upset someone but... you're a werewolf. I'm a vampire. We are ACTUALLY separate species! What do you think is going to happen now?"  
"I don't know," he admitted, but he took a step closer and lent down until his face was very close to hers, "but whatever it is, I want us to decide on it. Not just... just have me screw it up because of a stupid reflex I couldn't control."  
"I would never have bitten you puppy," She sighed, allowing herself to lean into the warmth he radiated.  
"I know that," he had to bend his knees to rest his forehead against hers. "I swear. I never thought you were a monster," he grinned just a little, his boyishness shining through his eyes, "'cept maybe that part where you threw me around like a ragdoll... that was a little hard on the ego, you know?"  
Nyssa laughed in spite of herself and let him draw her in closer. "I knew you could take it."  
"I'm not sure how much longer I can take having three little vampire faces staring at me through the curtains though..." He didn't need to look, he could FEEL them looking at him.  
Nyssa went up on tip toe to look over his shoulder and giggled at the sight of Alice, Rose and Emmet's faces disappearing quickly from a gap in the lace curtains. "Honestly they're like children," she smiled. "Christ puppy, what are we doing?"  
"Whatever we want." He replied firmly, "Just whatever we want. God, I'm so sick of stupid hoops and all this crap. Lets just do what we want, whatever that is and they can just learn to live with it!"  
"You're having some sort of mid-teen crisis aren't you, puppy." She asked, smiling.  
"Ha, something like that. I stayed on the reservation because everyone wanted me too, and I've had so few friends I could lose three fingers and still count them on one hand. So screw it," He grinned at her, his boyish mischievousness deployed to devastating effect, "I don't wanna be third wheel guy anymore, and I don't want you to be like, ninth wheel girl either."  
"You are a really nice kisser," Nyssa smiled shyly and gave in, leaning against his chest letting her head flop forward onto his shoulder. "Puppy, are you blushing?"  
"Indian men don't blush," he said with an absolutly straight face. "We just have really good circulation, in the face area."

Bella stood in the doorway running interference as best she could, but the reality was that eventually the vampires would get sick of playing with her and simply pick her up and move her. Emmet in particular wanted out to stick his nose in where it would no doubt make a mess.  
"She's a big girl, Emmet. Hey stop no tickling!" She laughed as he picked her up, flung her over his shoulder so she could pound ineffectually against his back and ass while he trotted down the stairs.  
"Nyssie? You alright baby-girl?" Emmet had a big box-head and everyone always thought he was pretty slow. He didn't have Edward's brain or Alice's talent, Jasper's history or Rosalie's sharp wit but he wasn't completely without his wiles...  
"I'm fine Emmy," Nyssa sighed, looking up at Jacob, her eyes asking him if he really thought this was something they should be doing. He let his hand slip down her arm and gripped her fingers gently.  
"Emmy?" Jacob asked with a raised eyebrow.  
"Dude, you wanna get called puppy by anyone else?" Emmet growled.  
Jacob held up his free hand with the palm open "point taken."  
"Emmet! Put me down!" Bella was kicking madly over his shoulder right up until he deposited her on the driveway. "Oh!"  
"See. All you're dancin', I'm here and no one exploded."  
"Some chemical reactions take time," she grumbled, straightening her clothes. "Emmet, this is Jacob. I don't think you guys ever actually met."  
"No, but we've glared across a few car parks, that brings guys closer." Emmet may not have been particularly smart, but he was heart-smart. He'd worked out the deal with Jasper and Nyssa long before even Edward had managed to catch its edges and if this was what she needed to be OK, then that was cool. "If you hurt my sister, I'll let my wife kill you."  
Jacob stood blinking for a moment, but Nyssa slid between them, "Em, I know you're trying to help, I do, and I love you... but I'm more than capable of fucking this up on my own, OK? Please. Stop helping."  
"What? I'd invite him in but you know what's going on in there right now don't you?"  
"Course I do. Edward's brooding, Rosie's snarking, Alice is bitching she can't see what's going to happen and as usual everyone's forgotten that Jasper can feel everything and he's trying real hard not to let his head explode." With an angry stomp of her foot Nyssa raised her voice slightly "cut it out! All of you!"


End file.
